But you must give yourself time to get over this--this disappointment,
and to look about you. You must try to content yourself at home with
mother and with me. I am so selfish that I am almost glad it has
happened, for now for a time we shall have you with us, all to
ourselves, and we can take care of you and see that you are not gloomy
and morbid. And then when the fall comes you will have decided what is
best to do, and you will have a rest and a quiet summer with those who
understand you and love you. And then you can go out into the world to
do your work, whatever your work is to be."

I turned toward her and stared at her curiously.

"Whatever my work is to be," I repeated. "That was decided for me,
Beatrice, when I was a little boy."

She returned my look for a moment in some doubt, and then leaned
eagerly forward. "You mean to enlist?" she asked.

"To enlist? Not I!" I answered hotly. "If I'm not fit to be an officer
now, I never shall be, at least not by that road. Do you know what it
means? It's the bitterest life a man can follow. He is neither the one
thing nor the other. The enlisted men suspect him, and the officers
may not speak with him. I know one officer who got his commission that
way. He swears now he would rather have served the time in jail. The
officers at the post pointed him out to visitors, as the man who had
failed at West Point, and who was working his way up from the ranks,
and the men of his company thought that _he_ thought, God help him,
that he was too good for them, and made his life hell. Do you suppose
I'd show my musket to men of my old mess, and have the girls I've
danced with see me marching up and down a board walk with a gun on my